Super Deluxe Princeton Reverb? You bet!

[jackies]

Greetings to the GroupDIY crew and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

New year, new builds!
I had me a small vacation, time to work on my stuff!
I started building this one long time ago, before CJ had his inspiring thread going.
Took me longer to finish it too, too much attention to detail I suppose?
As it happens, I started with building a box, though I didn't go as far as testing the sound of wood, and decided that modest MDF will be good enough...

White tolex for fancier looks!

I wanted a bigger cleaner sound, so 15" alnico was an obvious choice.

Had the front panel laser engraved, looks good!

Some drilling and hammering, a homemade turretboard!

Start putting it together, sockets, pots, transfomers and stuff.

All sorts of old crappy "period correct" parts are used, except for electolytic caps.

When I first fired it up, it was buzzing and crackling real bad, so I redid the grounds and ran shielded wire in a couple spots.
Now it's quite silent and sounds good too!

Not to mention that it also looks good!

This build took a very long time, so now I'm hoping to do a few faster pcb+chips type builds.
:
Rather satisfying nevertheless!

 

[drask]

Really nice build

 

[michal_k]

Looks pro. Did you do all the wood work on your own?

 

[jackies]

Yeah, actually there isn't really that much wood, or rather mdf-work. I built a few speakers and subwoofers, a lot more involved boxes.
Now the chassis, I had to find people who would bend and weld it for me...

 

[tv]

Looks pro.
...

Yeah.

Actually, you must be some kind of a boutique snob, pretending to be a DIYer, haha.

 

[mich]

beautiful!!!

 

[michal_k]

Now the chassis, I had to find people who would bend and weld it for me...

Is it made out of steel? what kind of finish is that?

 

[letterbeacon]

Wow, looks great!

 

[emrr]

awesome

 

[CJ]

looks better than Fender! Awesome!

that tolex is perfect, takes a long time to get tolex right, eh?

nice 100K carbon comps,

what choke and output are you using?

you might want to leak check the color banded caps, i have had problems with that type, along with the black beauties from sprague,

 

[jackies]

Thanks for all the kind words - I was trying to do the best I can to make everything as nice as possible!
I suppose I am something of a DIY snob...
Chassis is made from 2mm steel and is zinc plated.
Choke is some old thing I had kicking about, spray painted black, power trafo is from weber, output is "Blackface Deluxe Reverb Output" from tube de pot. I was concerned that old caps may be leaky, but they seem fine.
Reverb decay seems a bit long, I'm thinking to try a "short decay" tank, they're not very expensive...

 

[fazer]

Very nice Detail.  Looks great.  I like the C15N speaker choice.  I'm looking at one for a Vibroverb. 

 

[bruno2000]

Looks great!  +1
Best,
Bruno2000

Looks pro.
...

Yeah.

Actually, you must be some kind of a boutique snob, pretending to be a DIYer, haha.

 

[loopermc5]

super build!! nice and tidey

 

[nashkato]

very , very nice .
like that white tolex , i still haven´t got tolexing right once .
The only thing surprising me ist the rather thin front for the speaker . doesn´t even look like 10mm ? or is it the pics/angles ?

 

[jackies]

No, the whole cab, including the front baffle, is made from 19mm MDF. Speaker is recessed though, that's where it looks thin I suppose...

 

[alexc]

Nice job Jackies!

I'll bet that sounds the business.

There has got be nothing more satisfying in the world as building a bona fide tube combo 

I did this one a while back - nothing else comes close.

Now I spend my time trying to capture the sound in a diy tube  preamp/eq/comp combo.

While I am getting there, I just record thru it.  8)

It has 4x Jensen 10"s. My current build has a single Jensen 15"  For the price, couldn't be happier with them

I have to say, a  335 or Jazzmaster  and a BYOC 5-knob compressor (modern Ross implementation) into one of these, my search for ultimate guitar tone is over. No need for an overdrive pedal.